


Circuit Court

by Missy



Category: The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Genre: Case Building, Case Fic, Cooperation, Decisions, Fairness, Female Friendship, Gen, Justice, Law Enforcement, Lawyers, Slice of Life, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 14:58:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11210451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Iphigenia Poole is called to No Man's Land to possibly represent a woman familiar to her family - who turns out to have a surprising method behind her madness.  The women of the town - citizens, witnesses, and passer-bys - will help Iphigenia decide if she should take the case or not.





	Circuit Court

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



Iphigenia Poole tucks her legal binder into the fold of her elbow and shields her eyes from the blinding glare of the sunset as she stepped down from her coach. This is No Man’s Land, this lovely town with its warm looking homes and beautifully clean streets. This is the place where her client is hiding, and the place where she will hopefully be able to set her free.

 

 

****

**~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~**

 

 

Jenny Taylor is a long, tall woman with tired eyes but a winning smile: she looks Iphigenia right in the eyes when she shakes her hand with firmness and leads her to the city's sole jail cell. 

“Miss Hawks - the arresting bounty hunter, - she found her trying to dynamite the railroad track,” Jenny said. “Suspect couldn't tell me why she wanted to do such a fool thing. We’re holding her on criminal mischief charges til we find out if she’d fit to stand trial.”

No Man’s Land had changed a bit since they’d let the railmen put a track down at the edge of town; it had opened up easy communication between the town and the rest of the world, and allowed word to spread of this wonderful town in which a woman could make her own way free and easy. Since then they’d allowed new women into their fold, but most men still didn't feel themselves welcome to easily stride the limits of their fair city. A decent trade, so Jenny says, for allowing the male persuasion to come this far, to trade for goods and food and water for their horses. Iphigenia casually takes this information in as they walk together. They need money, and industry, and they’ll take it from whence they can get it. “The deputy two towns over’ll be by tomorrow to give you her statement, and Miss Hawks too. Until then you can give council right here,” she said, unlocking the small single cell of the No Man’s Land jail.

Iphigenia takes off her sun hat as she entered the spare cell. Inside, sitting on a plain bench, is a woman with dyed dark red hair, her eyes bright and snapping as she looks up from her folded palms. She looked her lawyer up and down with a level of distaste, and a resigned smile. 

“Hello, Rita,” says Iphigenia, double-checking her documents. The name is familiar. Something to do with one of Socrates’ tall tales? His letters have passed through her hands with an almost dizzying speed and she can barely keep up with his news nowadays. She’ll have to ask him some questions, later.

“May I have my dinner before we continue this?” asks Rita.

“I don’t see why not,” she says, and Jenny sighs before asking her deputy to bring food enough to feed all four of them.

 

 

****

**~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~**

 

 

They sit together for their noon meal, a side of beef sandwiches with potato strings from the Raymond’s Restaurant up the block. “I wasn’t intending to kill anyone, you understand,” says Rita Avnet – which Iphigenia assumed was the woman’s Christian name, and she refused to give another. “I just needed the train to derail. I needed the gold in the store, you understand – wanted to prove to my boyfriend I knew what i was doing. Or he was my boyfriend before this unpleasantness occurred.” 

Iphigenia continues to make notes in her careful, fine hand. “Unpleasantness?”

She shrugs. “You know how men are,” she says, her tone a line under manic. Iphigenia gulps. “They’re disappointments. One after the other, they’ll walk out on you – go without a single. Trace." Her fingers snipped the tip from a potato string. She continues a moment later, having stuffed the offending string between her lips. "So I thought I’d prove my worth to him. Show him who the real big cheese around these parts is.”

This twigs Iphigenia’s senses quite smartly; makes her remember something else - her childhood lessons; competing with Socrates, her eyes on the sparrow, her belief in fairness and justice. To trace the lines back to the core; she has a route to follow now; a map, pressed into her open palm, to guide her.

Now all she needs to do is connect Rita’s to a name and she’ll have a crack to jam her thumb into.

 

 

****

**~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~**

 

 

Jenny sets her up at the town’s sole hotel, and in that lobby she makes herself a headquarters. Iphigenia’s in the middle of trying to get a wire out to her colleagues, out to the FBI’s San Francisco headquarters, which likely had information about any men who happened to be among the wanted types , when Betty arrives for her interview. She’s jittery but conclusive, and remembers exactly what Rita was wearing. She’s even submitted the black mask and handkerchief she’d left at the tracks. Jenny remarked that Betty’s luck was finally turning around but Iphigenia made no further statements about luck or about – she was too busy taking in the details of the mask. She’d held one of the young porters at gunpoint in an attempt at trying to get off scot free; she’d apparently also kicked Betty right in the gut while she and Miss Hawks were trying to bring her in – Betty was especially incensed about that turn of events. “Whatever she’d been trying to do,” says Betty, “it wasn’t anything nice or kind.” 

Iphigenia tries to reconcile the portrait that Betty’s given her of an unpredictable, physically woman and the desperate one in the jail cell. They were definitely the same woman, and definitely dangerous.

 

 

****

**~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~**

 

 

Crystal Hawks arrives much later in the day, confident and intelligent. “I’ve been searching for Miss Avnet for some time,” she explains. “She’s wanted in five counties for attempted murder. Mostly of men.” Crystal shrugs. “Not that I can blame her…”

“You’re the third woman I’ve met with who’s used that exact set of words,” says Iphigenia, who shakes her head. “So train robbery is well within her wheelhouse, you’re saying.”

“Yep,” says Crystal. “In fact I think she was hoping to prove something to the conductor. It seems as if she didn’t fall in with another gang of fellas last I heard of her – in fact, looks like she was trying to go straight until this loco business with the robbery popped up.”

Iphigenia raises an eyebrow. Rita’s criminal record hasn’t exactly seemed spotless – she’s been grasping at straws trying to find a good defense for her – and suddenly here it is, falling fat and warm into her lap like a sun-heated plum. If Rita had acted out of love for the conductor, then she could simply call it a crime of passion - a reasoned insanity defense. “Do you know anything about the conductor?”

Crystal shrugs. “His name’s Hank – he’s been running the six-ten back and forth from this county to Mendocino for a whole two years now. Seems like a nice fella – seen him around town when I stop by.”

Iphigenia grins. “Can you get me an interview with him?”

“Sure, I’ll ask Jenny, but I don’t see what you’re driving at.”

Iphigenia closes her casebook. “You will,” she declares.

 

 

****

**~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~**

 

 

Her interview with Hank will have to wait; he’s in Mendocino at the moment, which leaves Iphigenia time to settle down for dinner – Jenny’s treat. Crystal and Betty are with her when the Schwenkie twins come up, speaking excitedly to each other in Swedish and hauling a large metal device between them.

“We have something for you, Miss Poole!” says one of the Schwenkie girls – Katrina, she thinks - as Iphigenia nibbles her chicken.

“It should help you tell if Miss Avnet is telling the truth –or if Mister Hank is,” her sister Ilsa says.

With great fanfare, the two women place the device on the table, revealing a large metal box attached to several large steam hoses and a series of buttons attached to charcoal sticks. Attached to the other end of the box was a length of rope with a leather band. “It’s…what is it?” asks Iphigenia.

“It’s a lie detector test!” says Ilsa

“We made it ourselves. You attach the band of leather that’s part of the box to your liar, then you ask them questions. If they sweat when they speak, then they are lying, yes? So this squeezes down on their wrist! And it lets go as it dries.” 

“Wouldn’t the person lose an arm?” worries Iphigenia.

The twins glance at each other and shrug. “We’ve worked out most of those problems,” says one twin.

“This is an interestingly violent town,” remarks Iphigenia out of the corner of her mouth to Jenny.

“Have to be tough to live in the west,” says Jenny, who just smiles and drinks heartily.

 

 

****

**~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~**

 

 

“I don’t know how you girls can stand living without men,” Dixie Cousins sighs. She’s just finished her five thirty show and all of the women have heartily applauded her performance. She’s counting dollar bills and chatting to the lot of them, knowing most of the women at the table through her relationship with Brisco County Junior, the infamous bounty hunting lawyer who’s now her fiance. 

(Iphigenia blushes to remember the time he kissed her and is careful to let nothing slip to Dixie. Good God, what a mess!)

“Have you ever tried it?” asks Jenny.

“Sweetheart, I grew up in a convent,” says Dixie. She slaps her palm down on the table, raises an eyebrow and drawls, “ten years of my life were more than enough.”

Later she corners Iphigenia and tells her all about Socrates’ brief, quite affair with Rita – and as importantly that the woman nearly murdered Dixie with her bare hands, and then blew up the Westerfield Club. “Think long and hard before you say yes, honey,” Dixie says. “Rita is…one hell of a woman, to put it kindly.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t tell me,” she sighs, rubbing her temples. How many letters and telegrams has she swapped with Socrates in the two years since his near-death? Why is she only learning about all of this now? “I’ll have to recluse myself from the case because of personal connections.”

“Not necessarily. You could always lie about them,” Dixie suggests, to Iphigenia’s horror. 

“I’m a servant of the law, Miss Cousins,” she says.

Dixie shrugs. “Lying’s worth it, if you really believe in what you’re lying for.” She shrugged. “Rita may be a snake, but you’re the only help she has right now. Maybe even with all of her wickedness someone ought to show her there’s some good in the world.”

 

 

****

**~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~**

 

 

“So are you gonna take the case?” Jenny asks, walking her back to her hotel.

Iphigenia considers, as always, before opening her mouth. Even the most lost, the most evil, among them deserves a good defense. She remembers the second chance that she herself gleaned from Brisco when she'd allowed love to manipulate her. As wicked as Rita may be, Iphigenia relates to her, deeply, honestly, truly. And as she tips back her glass, she decides that she’ll be Rita’s voice, even if the woman wishes her silent.

“Definitely,” she says happily, and her directness is enough to make Jenny grin.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved the incredible female characters of this show, and I hope you enjoy my take on a Briscoish tale for them!


End file.
